The greatest scientific discoveries of 2010 (Part 2)

We are entering a time of transition that is not just a new year but a new decade. Let's review the most important scientific findings in the past 10 years .

The 2010s are about to close to make way for another new decade to arrive. The past 10 years have been full of breakthrough discoveries or discovering new knowledge never before in history. These advances are either close to the human body, or far to the edge of the universe.

Taking a look at the innovations over the last decade, it is easy to see that the trend of large research groups to the scale of thousands of people is increasing compared to research groups with only a few members before. These groups are not just colleagues at a workplace, but also work together across the globe.

10 years with countless new insights, though not contributing to the overall progress of science has also helped us change our minds about a problem. Selecting the most representative findings of the decade is therefore not easy. Here is a list of amazing discoveries voted by National Geographic editorial staff.

9. Completely change the view of the universe

The decade of 2010 saw many important cosmic observations, revolutionizing the way we studied the universe.

In 2013, the European Space Agency launched the Gaia spacecraft to collect data and measure distances of more than one billion stars in the Milky Way as well as velocity data for more than 150 million stars. The dataset has helped scientists create a complete 3D map of our galaxy, providing an unprecedented view of how galaxies form and change over time.

The Event Horizon Telescope is a ground-based telescope that has captured for the first time the actual image of a black hole at the center of M87 galaxy - a giant galaxy belonging to the Virgo galaxy cluster.(Photo: EHT).

In 2018, scientists published data measured by Planck satellite about the dawn of the universe, which contains many important clues about the components of the universe, structure and speed. its expansion. The numbers that were plagued by the new rate of expansion differed from previously known figures, a 'cosmological crisis' has begun and physics continues to have to be explained.

Also in 2018, the Dark Energy Survey began to release the first observational data, helping people increasingly understand these mysterious pieces of the universe. And in April 2019, scientists using the Event Horizon Telescope revealed the first real picture of a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87.

10. First touch the stars

Future historians can look back on 2010s as a decade in which we reached interstellar space: For the first time, human spacecraft have pierced a curtain between the sphere of influence of the Face Heaven and the common space of the stars outside. Understandably, we have transcended the Solar System physically.

The graphic shows two Voyager 1 and 2 ships leaving the Sun's heliosphere and the Solar System's sphere of influence.(Graphic: NASA).

In August 2012, NASA's Voyager 1 probe crossed the outermost boundary of the heliosphere - a giant bubble containing charged particles emanating from the Sun and enveloping the Solar System inside. Voyager 2 went on to follow its twin brother in November 2018 and obtained groundbreaking data along the way.

But it turns out, the road to the interstellar region is a two-way street. In October 2017, astronomers found 'Oumuamua, the first object to form in another star system and into our Solar System. In August 2019, amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov found the second such a powerful working comet now named after him.

11. Prehistoric cliff paintings

Over the past 10 years, excavations from around the world have strengthened our knowledge of ancient works of art (or at least doodles), which turned out to be very popular. globally and longer than we ever know.

In 2014, researchers discovered that hard objects used to carve stone and an animal painting in the Maros cave, Sulawesi island (Indonesia) date back at least 39,000 years, making them aged. life is the oldest cave paintings in Europe.

Later in 2018, researchers published the discovery of cave art in Borneo, which formed between 40,000 and 52,000 years ago, further pushing back the time stamp of the cave. cliff paintings. Finally, another discovery in 2018 in South Africa shows that a carved stone surface was made some 73,000 years ago and is currently the oldest painting in the world.

A man is taking measurements of a rock circle inside Bruniquel cave in France, which could have been a Neanderthal residence.

These works also raise controversy about artistic skills of Neanderthals. In 2018, researchers uncovered the pigments found in perforated sea shells in Spain dating back 115,000 years, knowing that only Neanderthals lived in Europe. That same year, another study suggested that some cave paintings of ancient humans in Spain were 65,000 years old.

Earlier in 2016, 176,000-year-old paintings were also found in France. Many cave painting experts have dissected and debated these findings, if the search results are accurate and not accidentally drawn by wild animals, it may be the first evidence of the paintings. cave of the Neanderthals.

12. Great discoveries for the Solar System

In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft completed a decade-long mission to reach the Pluto's frozen world, sending Earth its first images of the surface and details. of this dwarf planet.

On the first day of 2019, New Horizons went further to take the first photos of Arrokoth or another name: Ultima Thule, it is one of the most original objects still preserved. properties from the first formation of the Solar System to the present.

The first image of Pluto was taken by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. (Image: NASA).

A little closer, NASA's Dawn spacecraft came to Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt in 2011. After mapping this dwarf planet, Dawn continued to fly to the planet's orbit. Ceres is the largest object of the asteroid belt and becomes the first mission ever to orbit a dwarf planet and orbiting two extraterrestrial objects.

Near the end of the decade, NASA's OSIRIS-REx and JAXA's Hayabusa2 went to the asteroid Bennu and Ryugu with the goal of collecting and sending collected pieces of earth and rock to Earth.

13. For the first time discovered "the seeds of god"

How does matter have mass? In the 1960s and 1970s, physicists including Peter Higgs and François Englert proposed a method to explain this in terms of the energy field that covers the universe, now known as the Higgs field.

Illustration of Higgs particles erupting after a collision between protons.(Graphic: Moonrunner Design).

This field, when theorized, also comes with the fundamental particles associated with it, today called it the Higgs particle, but they are only theoretical because humans have yet to find this particle in practice. July 2012 marked the end of uncertainty when two CERN teams announced the discovery of the Higgs boson.

The discovery shocked the world, filling the final missing part of the Standard Model, which describes three of the four fundamental forces of physics and talks about all known elementary particles. . Although this theory is still not complete, the Higgs bosons have filled an important part to help us strengthen them.

14. Discovering and rediscovering many species of organisms

Biologists today are identifying new species at an incredibly rapid pace, on average they name 18,000 new species each year. In the past decade, scientists have for the first time described a number of charismatic mammals, such as Myanmar upturned monkeys, Vangunu giant mice and Olinguito that were once discovered as carnivores. first in the Western Hemisphere since the late 1970s.

Sao la Vietnam.(Photo: William Robichaud).

Groups, genera, and other animals also expanded as scientists described newly discovered fish the size of a hand, frogs smaller than a dime, a giant salamander in Florida and many other species. In addition, Vietnamese Saola and Chinese Ili Pika were rediscovered species after many years of disappearance.

But along with many of these findings, scientists have calculated the exponential rate of extinction. In 2019, scientists warned that a quarter of plant and animal groups are threatened with extinction, meaning that one million known and unknown species are now in danger of disappearing altogether.

15. Start a new space era

The past decade has been an important transition period for space exploration. The approach to Earth's low orbit has become so commonplace that it has now become a business for space businesses around the globe, and they have commercialized the industry to soon turn into tourism. space.

In 2011, China launched its first space laboratory, Thien Cung 1, into orbit. In 2014, India's mission to orbit Mars also reached the red planet, making India the first country to ever send a successful spacecraft to Mars on its first launch.

Astronauts Jessica Meir (left) and Christina Koch of NASA in the space of the International Space Station are on a first all-female space mission.(Photo: NASA).

In 2019, the Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL tried to land a ship on the moon to become the first private mission to do so. In the same year, China's 4th Changyan also landed successfully on the Moon.

The global cosmonaut force is also becoming more diverse: Tim Peake becomes the first British professional astronaut, Aidyn Aimbetov becomes the first post-Soviet Kazakh space astronaut, and the emirate United Arab Emirates with Denmark also sent its first astronaut to space. What's more, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch made the first all-female space mission.

In the US, after the last shuttle was launched in 2011, private companies sought to fill this gap. In 2012, SpaceX deployed the first commercial supply mission for the International Space Station (ISS). In 2015, Blue Origin and SpaceX became the first companies to successfully launch reusable rockets into space and then bring them back to Earth safely, marking a milestone in sending ships to Earth's low orbit is economical and doesn't cost much.

16. Redefining measurement units

To understand the natural world, scientists have to measure it. But how do we define the units of measure? Over the decades, scientists have gradually redefined classical units to universal constants, such as using the speed of light to help determine the length of a meter.

But the unit of mass, the kilogram, is still attached to the Le Grand K mass, which is a metal cylinder located in France. If the embryo mass changes for any reason, scientists will have to recalibrate their measuring device.

A standard kilogram block at the US National Measurement Laboratory in Gaithersburg, Maryland.This is a standard kilogram block set in the US copied from the original in France.(Photo: Robert Rathe).

But that will be no more in 2019. Scientists around the world have come together to apply the new kilogram definition based on a fundamental element in physics called Planck's constant. The new definition is therefore improved for units of current, temperature and the number of particles in a given substance. For the first time in history, all of our scientific units today have come from universal constants to ensure a more accurate future of measurement.

1. The greatest scientific discoveries of 2010 (Part 1)